Rethinking Gender, Ethnicity and Religion in Iran

Azadeh Kian offers a path-breaking, brilliant feminist analysis of nationalism in Iran. Her rich, innovative reading displaces dominant presuppositions, categories, foci and methods. Kian makes central otherwise habitually invisible subaltern Iranian women, and gender, class, religious and ethnic relations of power. She ingeniously combines previously unheard women’s narratives from her fieldwork, and quantitative data. * Professor Paola Bacchetta, University of California, Berkeley, USA * Of the many interesting insights into how Gender, Ethnicity and Religion in Iran intersect, the most valuable is in the detailed historical background that links the formation of Iran as a nation and the push for modernity all the way to the Islamic Republic and its problems with ethnic minorities and women today. * Professor Emerita Erika Friedl, Western Michigan University, USA and Author of 'Religion and Daily Life in the Mountains of Iran.' * Azadeh Kian offers a fresh critical look at the category of woman in the Iranian context by analysing gender, class, ethnicity and religion, and reminding us once again that ‘womanhood’ is not a homogenous category. This timely contribution considers the power structures existing among women within the patriarchally shaped society which so far has largely been neglected. * Mastoureh Fathi, Lecturer in Sociology, University College Cork, Ireland *